Continuing my new series of movie and
TV previews I direct your attention to Mary Elizabeth Winstead, star
of the new movie, The Thing. The Thing – wait a
minute, didn’t this movie come out already…. Twice?
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| Looks like a lot of action! |
The 2011 The Thing is actually a
prequel to Carpenter’s The Thing and my view on any sort of sequel,
prequel or remake of any Carpenter film without Carpenter being
involved, is skewed toward disinterest and hatred. Even if Carpenter
was involved I would be highly skeptical. Still, I suspect this film
will attempt to capture some of the paranoia and tension the 1981
film excelled at. Hopefully the CG effects and other limitations of
the story (we know sort of what happens based on the 1981 film) won’t
hurt this film.
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| The Classic Thing |
My interest in this film stems from my
love of Sci-Fi movies but I am also a big fan of John Carpenter and
feel his The Thing was one of his best films and deserves the
high rankings among horror and sci-fi movies of all time. The
original 1951 Thing is good in its own right and deserves the
praise it gets. Those two Thing movies are so different that
I rarely compare the two anyway.
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| Kurt Russell in the best version!! |
I am not too sure about this prequel.
Using the title may be misleading people into thinking it is a remake
and for the most part it is. This is a relaunching of the franchise
just as Superman Returns was a sequel to the original 80's
Superman movie series. Hopefully The Thing works out better.
This relaunching may lead to a sequel which would be the remake of
the 1981 The Thing – confused? Anyhow the jury is still out
on this film.
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| Is the Thing the break-out film for Mary Elizabeth Winstead? |
One bright star in all this is Mary
Elizabeth Winstead. I consider myself a fan of this actress only
seeing her in a handful of films. The first film that really put her
on my radar screen was Death Proof. Her part was small but
memorable. The cheerleader outfit didn’t hurt. Other parts in
Live Free or Die Hard and Final Destination 3
demonstrated her acting ability. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
saw some more acting skill, playing Ramona Flowers, the distant and
troubling girl who is the center of Scott Pilgrim’s attention and
trouble.
Now she is the lead in The Thing
and I wonder if she can perform well in a story that I am critical of
from the get go. It certainly appears, from the trailer, especially
the Russian trailer, that the film looks good. One of the most
interesting things about the 1981 The Thing was that there
were no female characters at all in the movie. This time there are a
couple so this may change things up a bit. I feel she will do just
fine and look forward to this film more now because she is in it.
Not to put any pressure on her but she may make or break this film in
my mind.
I am also very interested in a future
film for Mary and that is Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
where she plays Mary Todd Lincoln. That sounds great!!
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| Can't have enough pictures of Mary |
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